Changes Planned At Miami Airport

March 9, 1999|By JAY WEAVER Miami Bureau

As a criminal investigation into contract and personnel problems at Miami International Airport gained steam, a top airport official proposed sweeping changes in the way Miami-Dade County does business there.

Aviation Deputy Director Amaury Zuriarrain warned his boss in January that they "must move swiftly and decisively" to deal with costly snafus in the maintenance and telecommunications divisions.

"The [Miami-Dade police] detectives working this case have made it amply clear that they do not wish to interfere, read delay, with our taking immediate corrective steps if we so desire," Zuriarrain wrote on Jan. 15 to Aviation Director Gary Dellapa.

Airport officials have yet to institute any of the changes, but County Manager Merrett Stierheim has vowed that there will be reforms as the airport undergoes a $5 billion expansion.

Zuriarrain has recommended creating a central procurement office for the county's Aviation Department to avoid the type of alleged purchasing violations and wasteful spending that have plagued the maintenance and telecommunications divisions. Among his other major proposals were to reduce the powers of the vast maintenance division, remove telecommunications from its control, and improve security at the nation's ninth-busiest airport.

Zuriarrain expressed serious concern about the aviation department's longtime telecommunications contract with WILTEL Inc. County police and auditors are investigating the telecommunications division's spending of at least $2.26 million on a faulty talking elevator system, useless switchboard consoles and a costly airline-phone network during the past two years.

Telecommunications falls under the authority of the airport's maintenance division, which has seen three of its employees arrested on public corruption charges in recent months.

Two were implicated in a payroll scandal, and another was allegedly moonlighting for an airport roofing contractor.

Zuriarrian wants Dellapa to reduce the size of the maintenance division, whose director, John Hamill, suddenly resigned in December.

"This concentration of powers and attributes of a virtual county department tend to foster an inappropriate degree of independence and potential for abuse," Zuriarrian wrote to Dellapa on Jan. 13.

Dellapa then assigned a Miami-Dade police officer to the aviation department. G.T. "Tom" Arnold, deputy director of Miami-Dade police, has already recommended that the Aviation Department use some of Zuriarrian's ideas -- including a central procurement office for checks and balances.

"I'm gratified that we're seeing things similarly," Arnold said. "I don't think you're going to see everything happen at once. It will be done in phases by Dellapa] because it's better to do them in phases."

Jay Weaver can be reached at jweaver@sun-sentinel.com or 305-810-5006.